


A prayer sent where grace reposes

by Eturni



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And has limited understanding of the Jewish tradition, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Introspection, Multi, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, angels using human works to understand their feelings, book of tahkemoni, freeform prose, use of a Hebrew text by someoen who does not speak Hebrew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 09:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20289157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eturni/pseuds/Eturni
Summary: Aziraphale loved books with a ferocity that none of the other angels understood precisely because it was the type of thing that so few other immortal beings understood. He may be the only angel who struggled this way but humans knew and understood and breathed life into stories of these feelings that helped manage them so much better.One of his most favoured books of poetry was the Sefer Tahkemoni, written by a wonderful Spanish gentleman by the name of Yehuda Al-Harizi in the early 1200s. The prose was quite lovely and the literary gymnastics in several of the pieces brought Aziraphale no small amount of joy at how artful humans could be. It was a stand out piece of it’s kind. And yet so much of what Aziraphale loved in it was how much the protagonist could remind him of Crowley sometimes, and how deeply the writer loved his dear trickster of a friend, the bringer of a wisdom that he was not always certain he wanted to received.





	A prayer sent where grace reposes

**Author's Note:**

> Okay guys, I got a long weekend because on Friday one of our pipes burst and I had to take the day off work to deal with a flooded house and the insurance.
> 
> Naturally what I did with that time was finally locate the text for a quote attributed to Yehuda Al-Harizi that gave me the urge to write a fanfic, hunt down the source and read the entire work whilst developing even more Ineffable Husbands feels. And then write the entire thing up.
> 
> Please note, the text I read was from my uni library already translated into English. I am not myself Jewish and don't have any particular education on the Jewish tradition beyond RE at school so please let me know if this is insensitively used and I need to get back in my lane.

Aziraphale was a very peculiar type of angel. Completely one of a kind, a fact the archangels were thankful for, and completely devoted to all of the things that he took a true interest. Anyone but Crowley might say he’d been tainted by so much time on earth, among the humans and one particular demon. The demon in question knew that Aziraphale had been unique from the start and had been enamoured of him from the moment he’d heard those four little words. _ I gave it away _.

Aziraphale’s own feelings hadn’t been as apparent to him for some time. He had loved humans and their inventions and Her creation with his whole being from the time of his existence. Crowley, he had initially thought, was subject to the same feelings of love.

That he looked forward to coming across the other again seemed to make perfect sense as the only other one who understood being an immortal being on earth. Crowley was the only one who he would not outlive in what felt like the blink of an eye.

Luckily for Aziraphale’s slightly oblivious (in denial) nature humans stepped up and started using their imaginations to form stories; to report truths but also to make up things that _ had never happened _ and to hide wonderful, painful truths and hopes among the words like Aziraphale wove balms and blessings into his actions. It was in the reflective light of the words humans weaved that Aziraphale learned to understand how different his feelings towards Crowley were compared to the all encompassing love that suffused his kind naturally.

Aziraphale loved books with a ferocity that none of the other angels understood precisely because it was the type of thing that so few other immortal beings understood. _Crowley did_. Crowley understood so much of him that his own side didn’t and it was exciting and terrifying all at the same time and Aziraphale’s main comfort was in the fact that humans had words for this. He may be the only angel who struggled this way but humans knew and understood and breathed life into stories of these feelings that helped manage them so much better.

Aziraphale did enjoy his bible misprints; a small if odd bit of rebelliousness against the perfection of Heaven that would have never misprinted anything. But he loved his first editions too. Loved having copies of those texts that spoke to him the moment he saw them and that he kept knowing what they would mean to the world before they needed their 2 nd  , 3  rd  , 4  th  printing.

One of his most favoured books of poetry was the Sefer Tahkemoni, written by a wonderful Spanish gentleman by the name of Yehuda Al-Harizi in the early 1200s. The prose was quite lovely and the literary gymnastics in several of the pieces brought Aziraphale no small amount of joy at how artful humans could be. It was a stand out piece of it’s kind. And yet so much of what Aziraphale loved in it was how much the protagonist could remind him of Crowley sometimes, and how deeply the writer loved his dear trickster of a friend, the bringer of a wisdom that he was not always certain he wanted to received.

Concepts that he sometimes feared, much the same way that Aziraphale’s heart often beat with fear, and something else, when Crowley would find those questions that scratched unsettlingly against his trust in the Ineffable Plan.

Hemen the Ezrahite was a wanderer who gained knowledge from others and was compelled to walk the earth to find goodness in people’s words. Hever the Qenite was ever a trickster, hiding his form and appearing in many guises but always known to the writer by his beautiful words and the eloquent rhetoric he passed on, whether for good or evil.

Whole episodes were the sorts of joking but beautiful arguments that Aziraphale could easily imagine being poetic renditions of arguments Crowley would have with another. The argument of pen versus sword, of the sun against the moon, even of the firmament against the oceans. That last one always left a twist of something sour in Aziraphale’s gut. _Butcher, rucky remnant of the Flood – your hands are full of blood. Deep in your reeking mud rot the bones of dotard, infant, nurse: oh bitter waters that bring the curse! Gross, wild, defiled, you murderer of woman and child: rapacious to a fault, you are Death’s very vault. _It was too much of the anger and fear that Crowley still carried with him about the flood. “_Not the children, you can’t kill children_.”

The way Hever would leave Hemen changed and uncertain with his words. The way he could unpick the holiest of words and leave him nonplussed and with an ache in his chest all the same. It echoed Crowley to him in so many ways. The Ezrahite would be taken away on wanderer’s wings to his good works and find himself too sober and missing a companionship he couldn’t give proper word to and always brighten immensely the second that Hever’s words revealed him for his true self. What else could Aziraphale do but feel that the words were written to echo his own complex feelings.

Especially with all of the trickery and mischief leading men to anger and their own sins. _ Count of imagination and fount of Falsification _ indeed. There was a particularly on the nose story of Hever holding a scroll that he claimed held the names of the angels of the water and had saved the boat from a terrifying storm that could have sunk their ship. It sounded so much like the sort of excuse Crowley would try to give for a miracle to save himself from a storm that Aziraphale privately wondered if Yehuda had ever come across the demon in his travels. And then, at the end of it all, the Ezrahite had decided not to reveal him to the crowd for fear of what might befall his corporation.

Well, body, self. Certainly not corporation, because it wasn’t an angel and a demon but two characters in a story. But how much it spoke to him; the game of hiding Crowley’s trickery and wiles as often as he thwarted them to ensure that he would not come to harm. Even knowing the ill that he could do.

With every passing century and every re-reading Aziraphale felt more strongly that the sentiments held within were too close to his own feelings where the demon was concerned. The two drank deeply together, shared wine and food and complicated, understanding words but still within short days or even just in the morning the Ezrahite would be called away or Hever would be gone; _ l _ _ eft me, sorely yearning, my insides bare and burning _.

Too often Hever would leave in a storm of angry words when the Ezrahite’s judgement of his cunning actions pulled a rift between them. Gone before the echo of his words finished. He came back to read those passages after the incident with the holy water in 1861 when he’d accused Crowley of being worse only for being fallen, had stormed away in anger and terror at the idea of giving him holy water. Crowley was supposed to be evil because he was fallen, that was how it worked, but sometimes Aziraphale saw kindness and saw something all too human in his questions and he wondered himself. Those were dangerous thoughts for an angel to have, so instead he read of human thoughts and feelings and remembered that, no matter how poorly any encounter ended, Hever and Hemen were always beyond pleased to see the other the next time they encountered each other.

Of course, despite all the trickery and mischief, Hever was a true believer and spoke of god’s love and teachings. Aziraphale wondered, only sometimes, if this was what Crowley would be like were he still an angel. Taking in students to teach them to think for themselves – he’d always been so good with children. Quick to anger at those who professed faith and kept wealth to themselves. And somehow still a trickster who would sow discord where he went and make Aziraphale’s life a flustered, frustrated mess.

If perhaps the Ezrahite would be Crowley who would forever seek him out, the way Crowley was wont to, for Aziraphale’s ramblings and musings from all the texts and words he’d absorbed from his human charges. If perhaps Crowley would be better at being an angel than Aziraphale and would be just as vexed with him as the rest of his superiors but that they would be drawn together regardless.

After 1941 the words seemed to shift meanings slightly again. Aziraphale knew well the point that Hever first proclaimed the Ezrahite his friend. _I am Hever, your friend, your dearest friend… turn to your heart and find me fast within._ And Aziraphale did, consistently, find Crowley bound fast in his heart. It would strike him hard to forever deny Crowley as his friend to those mortals who asked, so certain of their closeness but never having the right words for what they were to each other. It would almost break him, when they stood at the end of the world, to have the certainty of Crowley’s “You _do._” even as Aziraphale continued to deny him a friend, knowing as he did the truth: that Crowley was fast in his heart deeper than could be cut out. _You are graven on my heart till death do us part. But necessity forced me to leave you and deceive you._

When Aziraphale finally understood his own feelings he certainly realised how he had identified so well with a man who would write _Had Moses seen how my friend’s face blushes when he is drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man._ Everything of it was so suddenly a painful truth that Aziraphale had denied to himself for too long. The Sefer Tahkemoni, so clearly about the strong love of their friendship was startlingly also just as easily about the all consuming love of a counterpart and friend that one would always be drawn back to. Being _in love_, not just loving.

And it was a truth for a demon as much as for a fellow man. If Heaven could somehow see what were supposed to be terrifying demonic eyes in the soft, beautiful (perhaps, maybe, please) affectionate way that Aziraphale had seen them that they could not call it evil so completely.

There were words of Hever’s that were not directly to the Ezrahite but could easily be _ for _ him in the right context. That could speak of a consuming love that would not be moved no matter the cost. Aziraphale could think of Crowley’s temptations, the way that his form was as tempting as his words, and the wonder of if he could pay that back in kind.

_But I gave back his apple and forced him to eat; yes, I repaid him, measure for measure;_

_ I held up my eyes, I mirrored his flame, and roast him now at my own sweet leisure. _

He found himself reading the passage when Crowley did something especially considerate that stoked the flame in his heart that never went out. Sometimes, even, when Crowley told him of something truly wicked he had done that spoke of his deep understanding of, and care for, humanity. Or when something between them shifted unexpectedly, like loose stones on a cliff face, and Aziraphale found himself heart pounding and breathless, expecting to _ fall _.

He looked at it far more often than he’d care to admit.

It spoke to him in a way, though. If the other angels, if She, could look at Crowley and see the indescribable mix of contradictions that sat beneath the skin and made Aziraphale feel things that he had never asked for but never wanted to let go… Surely if they truly _ knew _ it, they would come to the same conclusion – that there was more than black and white in their differences.

Of course, there was also enough in the book to shame him for thinking that way, that he could know better than Her word. _Shall he lead you fearless to Heaven’s pike past Michael’s sword and Gabriel’s Pike? _ _ Stumble no more on sin’s decline, and when he bids you to his board, decline; gorge on his meats and sugary deserts and Heaven shall mete you harsh deserts. _That also seemed far too made for him, on the days that he wanted too strongly for Crowley, heart yearning and wanting to cross the divide between angel and demon.

It was Written. They were hereditary enemies, and always would be. So Aziraphale had to keep working against him, had to keep his distance, follow his orders.

But, _ oh _, if only they could see Crowley the same way Aziraphale’s heart did.


End file.
